Reely's Poetry Blog

by LIZZIE M. HADLEY (? - 1904)

He sat at the dinner table there
With a discontented frown;
The potatoes and steak were underdone,
And the bread was baked too brown.

The pie too sour, the pudding too sweet,
And the roast was much too fat;
The soup so greasy, too, and salt,
'Twas hardly fit for the cat

"I wish you could eat the bread and pies
I've seen my mother make;
They are something like, and 'twould do you good
Just to look at a loaf of her cake.''

Said the smiling wife, "I'll improve with age;
Just now I'm but a beginner;
But your mother has come to visit us,
And to-day she cooked the dinner."